The Times' constituency differs from that of say, Rush Limbaugh, whose
appeal is primarily to under-educated, fear-ridden, and thus
psychologically vulnerable residents of dusty, poverty-ridden corners of
America, whose legitimate fears have been cynically manipulated to make
them think that they are threatened by gay marriage, evolution, and
terrorism on Main Street. The Times would be laughed at by its
constituency if it criticized Darwin's theory of evolution, so the message
on its pages must be dressed up differently, including even criticism of
the state in measured proportion to its own declining credibility.

February 4, 2005

Even the Propaganda is Stale

he appended article is a verbatim transcript of a
microfilmed article from the New York Times for September 3, 1967. The
image was posted to the website:

The article is a revealing find in the archaeology of propaganda. It
confirms the assertion that elections have a long and infamous history as
a US response when its policy-determining elite perceives that it is
losing the war against the indigenous resistance to its aggression. Its
collateral use in the same circumstance is to shore up declining domestic
support. It is in the latter campaign against its own population that the
propaganda machinery on the home front plays an indispensable role.

The article's spin, placing Washington's cautious optimism alongside
the reporter's gushing enthusiasm, is perfectly calculated to shore up the
former's by-then-sagging credibility. Defense Secretary McNamara's remark
early in the war of "having the troops home by Christmas" turned into his
infamous remark, "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Compared to the modest 1967 article, the media megawattage expended on
the Iraqi elections suggests that, 38 years later, the best the
technocrats in charge of the domestic product could come up with was to
turn up the volume.

The 80% criterion for a successful turnout hasn't changed either, nor
has the utter lack of interest in the platforms of the candidates. This is
as you would expect for a propaganda event. To be effective, it must be
boiled down to a single, easy to grasp, and easy to falsify symbol.

Did this propaganda have real world consequences? One way of answering
that question is to ask how many US soldiers' were killed in action after
the Times' enthusiastic reportage of the September 1967 election. The
presumption is that the purpose of the propaganda, namely to prolong
public support for the war, was achieved.

The chart to the right has a vertical line at the date of the election.
It intersects the cumulative deaths curve at 13,728. In other words, at
the time of the election, that number of US soldiers had been killed in
action. By the time the US withdrew its forces in 1971, the total number
of combat deaths was 45,260. Thus, from the point in time that the NY
Times was providing specific assistance to the administration to enable it
to prolong the war until the war actually ended, an additional 31,532 US
soldiers died in combat.

The Times is not solely responsible for these deaths, but, to the
extent that its propaganda achieved its purpose, it shares responsibility
for them.

Has it ever acknowledged that responsibility and expressed regret for
its actions? It has not.

In fact, this shared responsibility characterizes a permanent U.S.
socio-political class whose defining attribute is imperialism and which
has at its disposal the military, police, intelligence, and propaganda
apparatuses it requires.

How did the Times respond when it was caught promoting the Bush
administrations lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? It lamely
pleaded journalistic haste in not wishing to be scooped as an excuse for a
long series of articles, mostly authored by Judith Miller, whose effect
was to create the climate of public opinion that the government needed to
support its latest imperialist war.

The conclusion is that these two examples of identical behavior by the
Times in respect to two wars, separated by almost 38 years, are part of an
underlying pattern which the paper goes to exquisite lengths to conceal.

In the early years of the Cold War, one of Radio Moscow's favorite
anti-capitalist epithets was "Wall Street war monger." I suspect they
applied the term to the NY Times. If they did, they were right.

OTTO

September 3, 1967

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote

Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

By PETER GROSE

ASHINGTON, Sept. 3—United States officials were
surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South
Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist
campaign to disrupt voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million
voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals
threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to
destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a
preliminary assessment of the national election based on the
incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor
the White House would comment on the balloting of the victory of the
military candidates, Lieut. Gen Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running
for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice
president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in
President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of
constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the
culmination of a constitutional development that began in January,
1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when
he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon
Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays
since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown by
a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been
ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.

Significance Not Diminished

The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the
generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years
does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of
the constitutional step that has been taken.

The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver
with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese
politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small
turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in
constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's disruption of the
balloting.

American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was
the figure in the election in September for the Constitutuent
Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to
the polls in elections for local officials last spring.

Before the results of the presidential election started to come
in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less
than 80 per cent because the polling places would be open for two or
three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83
per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United
States Presidential election was 62 per cent.

Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week
a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would
be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not
succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.